At 37, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was struggling to earn a
living by copying music and writing articles for an
encyclopedia.

Then, under a tree, he had an epiphany: Man is naturally
good and only becomes bad through the corrupting influence of
society’s institutions.

A year later, upon the 1750 publication of his “Discourse
on the Arts and Sciences,” Rousseau became the most famous
thinker of his generation. He later argued that the rich and
powerful had instituted inequality and tricked most people into
giving up their liberty.

When he laid out the implications of his belief in free
will, the authorities burned his books, and he was forced to
flee for a time to England.

Rousseau also found himself attacked by Voltaire, among
others, for hypocrisy, since he’d consigned all his newborn
children by a longtime mistress to an orphanage. One former
friend called him “a moral dwarf on stilts.”

After the French Revolution, which Rousseau helped inspire,
his body was moved to the Pantheon in Paris, directly across
from Voltaire’s.

I spoke with James Miller, author of “Examined Lives: From
Socrates to Nietzsche,” on the following topics:

1. The Quest for Wisdom

2. Christian Philosophers

3. Unity of Word and Deed

4. Literary Stylists

5. Cognitive Humility

To buy this book in North America, click here.

(Lewis Lapham is the founder of Lapham’s Quarterly and the
former editor of Harper’s magazine. He hosts “The World in
Time” interview series for Bloomberg News.)